I wish nothing ever happened around here

It turns out, Ahriman reads my blog.

He showed up at our apartment the other day and said to me, “So I hear that you’ve become bored doing Father’s will?”

Oh shit he looked unhappy. And when Ahriman’s unhappy, he makes sure to share that emotion with everyone around him.

“Get in the car. I have a job for you.” Ahriman’s socializing skills are unparalleled. I didn’t have a choice though, since he is the boss. We got into his car, and he drove us to… wherever it was he needed me to go.

As we went down the roads, I quickly figured out where we were going. There’s a cult town in a rural, isolated region outside the city. I usually stay away from the place; it’s too Fifties for me. All smiles and perfect suburban lawns on the outside, and all human sacrifice and despair underneath.

We parked in the town square, right next to the mayor’s house. My attention kept being drawn to the large gallows in the center of the square. They weren’t in use right now, but they had an ominous presence contrasted with the outwardly cheerful town.

Ahriman opened the mayor’s door without knocking and entered. There were several servants inside, but they averted their eyes from us as we approached. One accidentally bumped into me, and then flew into a panic as he apologized and ran off. Ahriman didn’t pay any attention to them, and walked us straight to the mayor’s office.

When the mayor’s secretary saw us approaching, she began to speak. But as soon as she recognized Ahriman, she looked down and was silent. Ahriman pushed through the mayor’s door, into his office.

He was sitting behind his desk, a smile etched onto his face while his eyes darted around the room, looking for an escape. “Lord Arhiman!” The mayor said. “You honor us with your visi-”

“Your town’s tribute was only half of what you gave us last month.” Arhiman interrupted.

The mayor was having a hard time keeping that smile on. “Yes, well, you see, things haven’t been going as well as they could here, the local economy’s fallen on a bad patch, we can’t-”

“He That Is does not tolerate failure.”

The smile was completely gone. “We’ll have everything you need! We just need a little more time to gather everything! I’ll fix this situation!”

“No. You won’t.” Ahriman pulled a pistol out of his pocket, and… and he shot the mayor. His body slumped over, and there was blood and brains and bone all over the back of his chair…. I heard a woman screaming behind us. The secretary had seen the murder. Ahriman pointed the gun at her and said, “Be quiet, woman,” but she kept screaming. So… he shot her too.

Then he pointed the gun at me, and I almost screamed, but kept it under control. “You have a knack for scrounging up money. I want you to go through all of this town’s records and find anything else we can squeeze them for. You will give me a full report by the end of the week.” He pressed the pistol up against my forehead. It still felt warm from the shots it had fired. “Unless, of course, you think that such a task would be too boring for you?”

Took me a few tries, but I pulled out a “No sir. I’ll get right on that,” eventually.

“Very good. I’ll send up someone to clean up the mess while you work. Praise be to Father.” And then he left me there with two dead bodies.

… I think I’d like to go back to the boring routine now.

Nothing ever happens around here

Yeah I know I just jinxed myself by saying that. But it’s true. I know I started this blog to talk about my life, but not much happens in it. People come in. People die. I fill out paperwork. The only break from the routine last week was when someone left out a knife and Sky nearly killed Ahriman. The look on his face when she jumped out from behind the door…. That moment completely makes up for all the trouble we have to go through with having her around. The victory was only soured by him deciding to take his anger out on the rest of us and double our workload. Asshole.

That’s it, really. I’m still here, no one I know’s died, so all in all the past few days have been pretty successful. Now if only there could be something to get me away from all this work, and it would all be great….

Another One Bites the Dust

There are days when I wish we could afford funeral expenses.

Another one of ours died yesterday. Called himself “Slasher,” so I expect he was one of the psychopaths amongst us, but even so…. Stuff like this is never pleasant.

According to what I’ve heard, he was interrupted by the police in the middle of a job. Had he been smart, he’d have given himself up. We could get him out easily after that. Instead, he tried fighting them. And in most cases, the lone guy with the knife isn’t going to do much against the multiple policemen carrying guns.

This is the reason I try to minimize the number of people I get attached to here. We die too easily. Even so, I hate having to fill out these papers. I always end up imagining what they were like. Before they became proxies, I mean. I create whole narratives in my head, where they’re all healthy, happy regular people who never heard of the Boss. It only makes me more depressed, but I can’t help it.

Lepidus has it even worse. He actually knows all these people. The poor guy’s too friendly for his own good. Every time we get a new recruit, he goes out of his way to get to know them, no matter how insane they are. “Just because we’re part of an evil murderous cult doesn’t mean we can’t be nice to each other!” is always what he says. Which means whenever we get news like this, he’s losing another friend. I’ve tried talking to him, but he always becomes distant at these times. I tell him that if he needs anything, I’ll be there for him, but he never takes me up on it. Wish he would… I hate seeing him like this….

Backstory

I got a question from Peri Helion in my last post asking why I became a proxy. And I figured that answering that might as well be my next post.

Why did I become a proxy? It’s simple. I really, really, REALLY did not want to die.

For me, it started out the same as most of you. I got drawn into this through the usual Marble Hornets --> Other vlogs --> Blogs --> Oh god He’s right there outside my window.

Several months followed of stalking, with my whole life falling apart. Boyfriend got killed. Parents vanished. Friends abandoned me because I was always acting paranoid and crazy. I tried going on the run, but I didn’t have the money or knowledge to support myself as a homeless vagrant. One day I couldn’t take it anymore, and when I saw Him again, I decided to give up. All I was achieving by running was prolonging the pain. And if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

There’s not guide for how you become a proxy, and I’m not entirely sure how I did it. I tried telling Him I wanted to work for Him, even tried bowing. He didn’t respond to anything I did. When I blinked He was gone, and I had no idea what to think. Had it worked? Was it that easy? Had I become a proxy?

For the next three days I wandered around the city, aimlessly wondering what I was supposed to do next. Never saw Him that entire time. I began to wonder if my attempt to change sides hadn’t worked, and He’d just decided to ignore me. On the fourth day, I was jumped in an alley, thrown into the trunk of a car, and driven outside the city to a shack, where I met Ahriman. He gave me my job, the place I live in now, and set me to work.

And that’s how I became a proxy.

For the first time since I got this job, our finances seem to have come out in the black. Maybe it’s because we’re in a slow period right now. It’s hard to spend money killing Runners when there don’t seem to be any Runners around. Therefore I decided to abuse my position and use the extra cash to treat myself to dinner.

Since eating alone gets boring, I was going to invite the others along. Well, maybe not the Jackson brothers. They creep the hell out of me. And we can’t take Sky to public places. She doesn’t react well to strangers. So instead of inviting everyone, I just invited Lepidus.

That was fine with me. Lepidus and me, without any of the crazies. At a really fancy restaurant, because after so many meals from the dollar menu, I was craving filet mignon. The whole night was planned out inside my head.

So I really shouldn’t have been surprised when everything fell apart. Sky had a really bad episode as we were about to leave, and we missed our reservations since we were busy bandaging her fingers after she tried clawing through the walls. No fancy restaurant then. Instead we ordered Chinese takeout. At least we have Netflix, so the night wasn’t a complete waste. We watched King Lear with Ian Mckellen while we ate. No idea what anyone was saying in it, but Lepidus explained what was going on enough for me to enjoy it. He’s a big Shakespeare fan; even says he took his name from one of the plays.

It was a fun night at first. Even Sky seemed calmed enough by the movie that she left us alone.

The problem came as the movie was nearing its end. The Jackson brothers barged in carrying a blood covered man. At first I thought he was dead, but then he  moaned in pain.

“Hey doc,” Gabriel called to Lepidus, “This guy’s about to buy the farm, but we’re not done with him. Patch him back up so we can keep going.”

That’s one way to ruin an evening. Lepidus went to help them while I took Sky away before all the blood sent her into a panic attack.

As for the rest of the money, I spent it on ice cream. Because in this life, there are some nights where all you want to do is lock yourself in your room and eat cookies and cream until everything feels better.